You have been warned.

For over a century-and-a-half, travel from star system to star system to star
system could never be a quick trip. Even the closest inhabited system of
Alpha-Centauri was more than five years away. Through the decades, the humans
and the centaurians had colonized the systems of Barnard and Sirius, and built
the artificial system of Human-Centauri. However, a voyage to another system
wasn't just something you could do for a joyride; it was usually permanent.

Then, a scientist thought to be mad created an advanced form of the antimatter
bomb, which was directional and apparently one-way. The fascinating thing about
this bomb was that when the center of the explosion was examined, it had poked
a hole in the continuity of space that was two-dimensional and one-sided.
Essentially, this was a hyperspace bomb! When the bombs were delivered to the
five systems, an unusual and unique idea was developed. The idea was to line up
the bombs exactly (within a thousandth of a second) between two systems
(starting with A. Centauri and Sol), and firing them simoultaneously.
Theoretically, this would make a hyperspace "tunnel" capable of shooting craft
(and radio) through it at unmeasurable speeds.

Before long, the five systems had links between them in a circular fashion,
formina a rather crude pentagon, and trade had become a way of life.
Forevermore, light would be considered extremely slow.

When an attempt was made to measure the time it took to travel from one end of
a hyper hole to another, the time registered was zero. Not even a microsecond!
Thus it seemed that some of the age-old theories about hyperspace were proven.
In hyperspace (which is just a coined word for the next dimension) light speed
is the slowest speed possible, just as zero is the slowest speed here. And
because of this, light is considered infinitely slow. For this reason, speed in
"hyperspace" cannot be measured in terms of light, for infinity times the speed
of light is the slowest possible non-zero speed.

The five civilizations were supposed to be at a state of armistice. However,
each one of them had a minor defense system in case of "alien attack". There
were basically five classes of fighting spaceships: mile-per-second type (the
slowest), sub-psol (psol stands for percent of the speed
of light), trans-psol, super-psol, and the fifth class may be
called either hyper-psol or sub-light. Each system had their own names for
their ships: The fastest of the solar system's were the Mercury series, the
fastest in the Centauri system were the Gellimand series (named after the
Centaurian god of light), and the other systems had their little beauties too.
In order that the concept of peace not be violated, however, the five systems
all agreed on a reasonable limit to the number of armed spaceships ; the SALTY
VI treaty.

The treaty stated that no system shall have more than ten sub-light fighters
(no matter what the size), more than twenty non-mps large space ships, more
than fifty non-mps space ships, or more than 300 mps fighters. However, to the
dismay of the other Pentagon leaders, the Solar system was discovered to have a
supply of extra fighters—exceeding the treaty's limit by over
fifty percent. For this reason, a council "meeting" was held on the neutral
planet of L1011-II (the second planet of the star L1011), where the leaders of
each of the five systems were to be present.

Although the trip took a little over six years in the systems' fastest
sub-light spaceships, it was hardly noticed by the ones riding there, although
they had to be kept in tanks of water to avoid the tremendous acceleration.
When the five arrived, they were greeted by no one, as this was a barren and
desert-like planet, which looks very bad on a post card. Within the hour, they
all assembled at the embassy headquarters (although this planet certainly
didn't need one), and began the "meeting".

Holsteader, the leader of the Centaurian system, spoke first. "Gentlemen, as
you know we are faced with a ve-e-e-e-ery serious threat to intersystem peace.
The Solar system, which are the notoriously backward poeple, are making more
fighters than the SALTY VI treaty will allow. So, I must insist that the Solar
system—"

"The solar system won't do a damn thing!", interrupted James Carter, the leader
of the Solar system. "We feel that the Salty VI treaty is totally incompetent,
since it was made over tewnty years ago."

"And for twenty years it has been more than reasonable!", demanded
Holsteader."So why the big fuss now, james?"

"Carter, to you! Anyway, if an alien civilization is advanced enough to
discover us from the depths of space, it's probably advanced enough to wage a
war with weapons we've never seen before. Because of this, we need a lot
of powerful fighters to prevent such an attack!"

"Hey, look. We—" The Centaurian leader's reaction was cut off so abruptly
by the door barging open that some of the crowd wondered if it were fixed. The
thought was instantly perished when the incomer made his startling
announcement.

"Carter, sir, we—oh, hello, Holsteader!" The informer strode up to
Pressident Carter, and whispered in his ear. "Sir, out espionage agents planted
in Centauri V have discovered that they have in stock more than double
the restricted number of fighters as specified by SALTY VI."

Carter immediately jumped to his feet with his eyes wide open. "Holsteader!",
he insisted. "What is the meaning of this?!?"

"The meaning of what?"

"The meaning of your drastic overbalance of the SALTY VI treaty !!"

"What are you talking about???"

"You have even more fighters than we do! My informer, who has just
arrived with news from six years ago, has told me that you have exceeded the
SALTY VI treaty by more than double!"

The room grew suddely silent, and each person knew what was going on. Both
systems had broken the terms of the treaty. Yet in order to discover these
facts, now both would have to reveal their espionage operations.
Suddenly, Yukariah Heap, the elected leader of the Human-Centauri system, spoke
up. "Now, look, you two—and everyone else! I'm quite sure that since both
of you have broken the treaty, most of the other systems might have,
too!"

The leader of the Sirian system abruptly stood and bleated out, "This is
preposterous!"

"Aha!", Yukariah snapped in return. "You are another prime suspect of treaty
breaking!"

"Well, what do you have, anyway?!?", inquired the leader of the Barnard
system.

"And what do you have?!! I'll admit it—I've broken ground on the
fighter limit—but only by a few percent. How about you, 'Siria'?"

"Don't call me that, call me by my name—Krammer!!...Well, so I did
overshoot the treaty somewhat....So??"

Ayatullah Breshnev, the Barnardian leader, admitted that he had his little
stash of overloads himself. "Well," commented Yukariah, "It seems that everyone
here has excess spaceships. So, why don't we just rewrite the treaty, and label
it 'SALTY VII'"

"Because six SALTYs is already too many!", the leader Holsteader replied. "The
treaty has served us well for over twenty years, and we all were in agreement
at that time that if any of us should break the terms of the treaty, then the
other systems would take more drastic action."

"But, because of the situation, every system is 'the other system'!"

"Nonsense! I will not stand for this any more!! We are going to blockade you,
and you, and you and you!!"

"Very well", said James Carter, "WE will do the same!!"

Soon, each system was in agreement—they'd all blockade each other.
However, it was at this time that Holsteader realized what was going on. "Hold
it!!", he announced, "All we're doing is blockading each other!!!"

"So what's wrong with that?", asked Krammer in a sarcastic way.

"What's wrong with that?!! Oh, never mind—you're hopeless! I
declare war on you!!!"

"WAR???" retorted Yukariah, "I came here as a peace maker, not to start
a war!!!"

"Peace, eh???!?", snickered Krammer. "Well, I like Holsteader's idea, so
I declare war on you, too, Yukariah Heap!!!"

"You can't do that!", demanded Holsteader. "I declare war on you!"

"Oh, yeah?", announced Ayatullah Breshnev. "I declare war on you, Holsteader
the idiot!!"

"Hey—you can't do that, eiter!", Announced James Carter. "I declare war
on...hmmmm...aha! I declare war on The Sirians, Krammer!!! I never liked you
guys, anyway!"

Before long, everyone had declared war on each other. The meeting was quickly
broken up, and each leader was taken back to their respective homeland in a
matter of six years, which again seemed like practically nothing to the
water-contained passengers.

Back home in the Solar system, the war had begun sooner than was expected. Just
as James Carter arrived on Titan (Saturn's largest moon), their scanners picked
up a super-psol-type warship, ladened with Centaurian markings, headed straight
for Jupiter. It was obvious that for the first battle, no one in the solar
system could build any battle-type improvements into their fighters; they'd
have to fight them with what little they had. A command was immediately issued
to Jupiter from Titan to launch Zelta-Dee, the only super-psol fighter equipped
with a radiation blaster. Although the signal took over half an hour to reach
Jupiter HQ, they still had enough time to put James' plan into action.

James' plan was an unusual yet very simple one. The Centaurians (especially
under Holsteader's command) had always prided themselves on loading down their
fighters with "secondary" or weak weapons, and not having any super-major
offensive weapons at all. However, recent experiments had developed what was
known as a "screen"—a super-powerful electric shield that completely
stopped any minor weapons hitting it. This was essential against light or
radiation weapons, since they can't be tracked down by radar or intercepted by
anti-missles (or anti-anything for that matter).

The first experiments with such a device were with Zelta-Bee, the second
experimental craft in the Zelta series. In order to make the screen function,
it had to be ejected from a spotlight-like device, which shone it at about
five hundred times its diameter, and about one hundred meters in front of it.
However, on Zelta-Bee, the spotlight was stationary, and if an attacker came in
from the side, instead of the fixed front position, the fighter would be
extremely vulnerable. On Zelta-Cee, however, the idea of having it moveable
greatly increased the fither's defensive power. Finally, on Zelta-Dee, the
final touch was added—the screen control was hooked up directly to the
Cray-3 battle computer.

Zelta-Dee was an unusual looking fighter, and from its design you'd never know
it was a fighter. If you could imagine a tiny, tiny front cab, connected to a
small box supporting the radiation gun's dish by a big, long connector
resembling a human spine, and that connected to a medium-sized engine by
another spine, that's exactly what it would look like. It was obviously
not designed for maneuvering quickly, but simply for travelling
fast in a straight line to its destination, whatever that may be.

Weapons were, of course, the largest concern of Zelta-Dee. Their major weapon,
the radiation gun, took an unbelievable amount of power. In fact, it took
thirty seconds of preparation for every four seconds of firing! Since that
weapon could only be used against really big attackers, the fighter had to be
equipped with other minor or "secondary" weapons. Not the least of these were
small missiles of both conventional and warhead types. The only problem with
them was that they couldn't be restocked while in the middle of a battle,
unlike the energy weapons which could be fired as long as the ship had power.
The best weapons on the fighter, with the exception of the radiation gun, were
the proton ionizer cannons. These extremely potent weapons, first conceived in
the late 1960's, worked on the principle of making all the molecules they hit
positively charged, and thus repell each other. And if these molecules happen
to be part of a solid object, it will essentially blow a big hole in the mass.
The only setback of these weapons was that they used a good fraction of the
power the radiation gun used, and so only a few could be fired at a time.

Aha, but modern technology has forged ahead again! If only two or three may be
fired simoultaneously, then the enemy would have no problem avoiding them. But
what if a whole bunch of harmless decoys were fired with the few real
proton fireballs?? The proton ionizers shot out streams of protons which soon
turned to large balls of energy from the equalizing forces existing in all
energy forms. These energy balls shone a bright blue-violet-white, and were
easily visible (and avoidable) by the enemy. That's where the photon
cannons came in. Photons are just the microparticles that conform light waves,
which are completely harmless. And if they can form any type of light in any
apparent shape, why not make them into shining balls of blue-violet-white
light? Even though the balls are harmless, dozens can be fired simoultaneously,
since they use so little power.

The motion drive, or "engine" if you will, was an advanced form of rocket-type
thrusting, called a "plasma drive". Instead of using chemical rocket fuel, a
plasma drive simply used super-heated plutonium. In fact, if it were really
necessary, it could use hydrogen fusion for thrust, since the reaction chamber
could withstand temperatures in the millions of Celsius degrees.

After a good three-and-a-half hours of travel, the enemy spaceship was on
Zelta-Deel's scanners. By this time, James Carter had already taken a
super-psol passenger spacecraft into space toward Jupiter so that he could have
a better view of the Hyper hole and any space battles, and also reduce the time
lag from the radio signals.

"Aha!", announced the commander of Zelta-Dee. "There it is. Look at that weird
design! It looks like a few cabs and weapons ports attatched to a big,
featureless cylinder. Hmm, possibly their power supply. Oh, well, I'm not
concerned with that now. Weapons engineer! Let's give 'em a fireworks display!"

"Right you are, sir!" The weapons engineer quickly typed out a series of
commands on a computer console, and sent three proton balls and sixteen
photon balls out to greet the Centaurian fighter. The commander knew as
well as everyone else that the only way to tell the difference between a proton
ball and a photon ball was to either allow yourself to get hit by it, or to
thrust a thermometer into it and check the temperature. If the balls didn't
kill the enemy, the radiation gun would certainly wipe them out.

There was one flaw in James' plan. The distance from L1011-II to the Solar
system was 4.7 light-years; the distance from L1011-II to the Centaurian system
was only 4.6 light-years. This subtle difference of 0.1 light-year gave
Holsteader over two months to plan his strategy. And that two-month period gave
him just enough time to develop highly sensitive heat detectors. With these
devices, the Centaurian fighter easily picked out the three proton balls, and
carefully avoided each of them. "Well," said the commander of Zelta-Dee, "If
the proton balls didn't stop them, then the radiation gun will! Prepare to
start the generating sequence!

"Uh, yes sir!" The weapons engineer had an uneasy feeling about this. Exactly
how did they know which were the proton and which were the photon balls? And if
they pulled off one miracle, could they possibly pull off another?

Just as the commander was giving the order to start the generation sequence,
the helmsman barged in with an urgent message: "Commander— put the
display up to 20x magnification!!"

He reached over to his console, and typed in the command "DI,20". What he saw
froze him, as he stared with open-mouthed astonishment. The top of the
Centaurian fighter was opening up, via two hinged doors. It was then it
dawned on him—this thing was designed just like the twentieth century
space shuttle, with a big, cylindrical cargo hold. But what could the hold
contain??

The commander's question was soon answered—it contained a smaller
cylinder, with a big hole in the front end. The whole thing was supported and
manipulated by an intricate set of cables and girders, some girders probably
hydraulic, and some cables probably electrical. But why lift it out durning a
battle, unless—of course, it was a super-advanced weapon of some sort! At
that point, the commander quickly revived himself fron a state of astonishment,
and gave an order to the weapons engineer: "Stop generating
proceedures—we're going to need that power for the screen!"

Just as the weapons engineeer terminated the generating proceedures, the enemy
weapon went into action. It sent forth at first what appeared to be a proton
bolt, but the thought was quickly dismissed when it stayed rod-shaped instead
of forming a sphere. Besides, it was much too large for any conventional proton
bolt, unless that enemy fighter was all generator.

"Sir!", announced the helmsman, "That 'thing' is picking up on my scanner!"

"Picking up? That's impossible! Energy doesn't pick up on radar!!"

"Well, then, sir, it must not be all energy!"

"Then what are you waiting for?? Send out an anti- missile!!"

The helmsman didn't waste time in responding, but simply carried out the order.
The small missile streaked toward its intended target, but instead of exploding
when it hit, it...melted! That thing must've had a temperature of over three
thousand degrees celsius!! As the thing continued to race toward
Zelta-Dee, the commander gave the order to split it with their most powerful
microwelding laser. The laser went through it as a sword through butter, but it
did not split in half— instead, it reassembled into a long, narrow
cylinder. Now it became obvious—yes it was matter, but in the form
of a very hot liquid or gas— probably liquid. The commander made his
biggest defensive order: "With the only exception being life support, divert
all power to the screen!"

There was only one way to find out whether or not the screen could take such a
load of power — execute the commander's command. The lights throughout
the fighter dimmed and finally went out, and the only things working were the
life support, the bridge's scanner, and, of course, the screen. All that was
visible on the scanners were the long glowing "thing" heading toward them, and
a circular grid representing the screen. For a good amount of time, the screen
held the load.

Suddenly, the automatic screen control shifted 45 degrees. This left the area
the "thing" was sure to hit completely unprotected. Suddenly, it became clear
what had altered the control: a small drone ship was attacking Zelta-Dee from
the left side. Even though this was a very minor emergency, the battle computer
had taken it as a bigger one than the "thing", since the "thing" was not
hostile (yet). The drone was obviously an extremely intelligent and sneaky plan
of the Centaurians.

The Commander quickly ordered that manual control be retained, so that the
screen could be aimed back in front again. But even though the weapons engineer
typed the command instantly, and the commander brought the screen to the front
in a split second, the rod of light had passed by the screen and was just
inside of its reach. The impact was imminent.

James Carter came to the visual scanners on-board his craft just in time to see
the rod of liquid light pierce the spine of Zelta-Dee, and shear it in half
just before the radiation gun. Now, both the fighter's engines and her most
powerful weapon were no longer part of Zelta-Dee, but part of the infinite void
of space. And along with the engine and radiation gun went the fighter's
biggest power supply. The only thing the fighter had were its emergency
batteries. If they hadn't been Duracell, they would be doomed instantly.
Nevertheless, Zelta-Dee's screen was fading fast, and would be gone within
thirty seconds. James could do nothing but watch, as they were more than thirty
minutes in the future, and what James was seeing was thirty minutes in the
past. Destiny for Zelta-Dee had already taken place.

The screen was gone. The only available shuttlecraft were filled to overflowing
with crew members, and launched. Now the only people remaining on board
Zelta-Dee were the commander and a recruited weapons "engineer". With the last
remaining power available, Zelta-Dee launched all her missiles and bullets at
the enemy fighter in a last attempt to not die in vain. Following this,
one feeble microlaser beam was fired at the Centaurian fighter, afterwhich all
light within Zelta-Dee was completely extinguished. Some say that both
passengers died from lack of life support before the secondary weapons of the
enemy reached them and tore the remains of Zelta-Dee apart. But whichever
happened, it made little difference; both people were dead beyond repair.

James Carter could be no more than astonished, or else he would have a nervous
breakdown. The latest and greatest of all the super-psol fighters was torn
apart in a ruthless battle which left no trace of its existence. The great
space station circling Jupiter was known system-wide for its hangars containing
both the entire Zelta series and the Mercury series.Soon, it was to be greeted
by another entrant, Zelta-Ee. But that would hardly compensate for the loss
that every space fighter engineer had felt or was soon to feel. In the section
marked "Zelta," the hangar labeled "D" would forevermore be empty.

James soon became so enraged at the Centaurians that he completely neglected
his war duties to the other three systems of the Pentagon. He just wanted
vengeance on that Centaurian fighter. And because it was moving away at such an
awesome speed, even for a super-psol, there was only one way James knew of to
catch up with it and have it torn apart in exactly the same way it tore apart
Zelta-Dee.:

"Good. Send Mercury IV out there with orders to kill that Centaurian fighter on
sight!"

"Well, okay—you're the boss!" The command was immediately sent to Jupiter
at the speed of light, and thirty minutes later, Mercury IV took off from the
Jupiter space station at over fifty psol. The design of the Mercury series
fighters, especially Mercury IV, was totally opposite of Zelta-Dee, and for
that matter, of Zelta-Cee, Zelta-Bee, and the original Zelta. At the speed the
sub-light fighters travel, they had to be streamlined to cut through the
few atoms of gas present in the nearly perfect vacuum of space. And Mercury IV
was by no means any exception. It was designed like an elongated "sphere" at
the front, with two big space intakes on the "top" and "bottom", which led to
two big rectangular exhaust outlet ports (the same shape as the intakes), with
several small plasma-drive engines between them for activation speed. All the
sub-light fighters (and other types) had to be ramscoops. Those were the only
craft capable of this kind of sub-light speed. The main difference, however,
from the Zeltas was the fact that Mercury craft didn't have any screens; they
didn't need any.:

The way the old ramscoops worked was by sucking in the hydrogen molecules of
space, ionizing them by removing their sole electron, and using them for
high-thrust exhaust. The way the newer ones worked (the Mercury series) was by
not only using hydrogen, but using the cosmic energy and light bombardment of
space as well. When travelling at speeds of a ramscoop the hydrogens and other
energies of space become so energetic that they build up an incredibly powerful
magnetic field and electrostatic charge which acts as a sort of screen against
minor weapons. And even if that gave out, all the ramscoop fighters are coated
with a heavy layer of titanium armor so that more major weapons would have less
effect, and at low speeds minor weapons would be deflected.

Mercury IV, or in fact, all the Mercury fighters, weren't equipped with the
radiation gun or proton ionizer cannons that Zelta-Dee had, but were extremely
loaded with weapons that required practically no energy to fire, i.e.
conventional and nuclear missles, vulcan cannons, etc..The reason for this was
that all their power had to go to producing the extremely powerful magnetic
field required for the ramscoop.

At last, Mercury IV had the Centaurian fighter on its scanner. Even though the
crew members had to be kept in tanks of liquid during the acceleration to half
light speed, they were travelling at a constant speed with no
acceleration, so it was safe to come and watch the battle take place. The thing
was, no one could actually fight in a battle like this. Since the spaceship was
going at almost 55 psol (it's safe to drive 55), time for everyone and
everything in there would be moving much, much slower. Therefore,
battles came and went just like THAT, so the CRAY-3 battle computer had
to do all the work.

All the crew (or just one member) had to do was type in the battle sequence
command to the computer. The weapons engineer strode up to the terminal, typed
in "AT,0", pressed -RETURN-, and jumped back to the viewscreen to watch the
battle which shouldn't have taken more than twenty seconds, ship time. When the
Centaurian fighter realized Mercury IV's existence by sighting a volley of
bullets flying by it, it sped up by almost 50%. It attempted to fire back a
large volley of pulses from its rear gas lasers, but none of them collided with
their target; it was moving much too quickly to obtain a 'fix' on. The
centaurians knew they had only one chance to escape Mercury IV: leap through
the nearby hyper hole to the safety of the Centaurian system, or
Alpha-Centauri.

The five hyper "holes" that formed the Pentagon of systems were extremely
useful for trade in a time of peace, but during a war they were just a
harassful nuisance. There was no known way to plug up the hyper holes, and in
any case they would probably be there for thousands of years. Now, waring
vessels could come and go as they pleased, leaving havock and destruction
behind.

Mercury IV's CRAY-3 knew enough to follow the exact course of the Centaurian
fighter just before it passed into hyperspace. Within a very short length of
time, Mercury IV had passed into the same place as the hyperhole, and was
instantly teleported in through the other end to the system of Alpha Centauri.
The little super-psol cried out desperately for help, hoping there'd be a
helpful fighter in the vicinity. The weapons of Mercury IV fixed upon the
Centaurian fighter, and were at it instantly. The first big wound came when a
large "Genie" warhead missle scored a direct hit on the fighter's plasma drive.
At that point, all engine power within the fighter ceased, to be replaced only
by the feeble energies of its rockets normally used for launching and landing.

A large volley of conventional missles followed this, vaporizing great gashes
of titanium and rubble used for radiation protection. The fighter containing
Alpha-Centauri's most powerful offensive tool was done for at last.

Soon, there were only a few metal filings floating around where the fighter had
once been. Now, two sides had avenged each other with a grand strikedown of
technology.

Although hardly any single fighter had a chance against Mercury IV, the jungle
of an alien system was a sure deathtrap for anything happening to stray into
it. For this reason, Mercury IV twisted around in a long turning arc so that it
could go back through the hyper hole and return to the Solar system.
Unfortunately, since the guidance battle computer was so intent on killing
those Centaurians, it had lost the coordinates of the hyper hole, and had to
relocate it once again. During the search, the engines had to be completely
shut down so that Mercury IV wouldn't accidentally crash into anything. During
this phase, the sluggish CRAY-3 (capable of only a mere 10 billion instructions
per second) made a continuous search for a single point in space where there
was nothing, which took a good amount of time.

Maybe too good an amount of time, for before the searching sequence was
over, a Centaurian sub-light fighter (which could have only been a Gellimand,
for those were the only sub-lights the Centaurians had) sighted the enemy
fighter, and commenced an attack. The crew of Mercury IV were unreluctant to
set the commands to immediately dive for the hyper hole once it was found, and
scurried hastily to their respective water tanks so they would be able to avoid
the twelve-gravity acceleration.

They knew they should never have instructed the battle computer to find the
hyper hole, for it was much too slow. Once it located it, however, the swift
CRAY-76 navigation computer took over, and Mercury IV was off like a flash. But
was the flash fast enough? It seemed that the Gellimand fighter was even faster
than Mercury IV—which meant the Centaurians had fighters faster
than Sol's, and seemingly better weapons.

The crew would never know the output of that battle, but would inevitably know
the outcome by whether or not they woke up dead. The Gellimand fighter drew
ever closer to the rapidly escaping Mercury IV, and when the range was lowered
to less than fifty kilometers, fired a Genie missle at the central back. The
missle streaked to the rear of Mercury IV, scored a direct hit, and blew up in
a giant blue-violet cloud. The explosion rocked the entire ship, but the crew
members inside would never know, contained in those shake-proof tanks of water.
The missle had hit in the exact center of the rear, which was fortunate,
since the ramscoop engines were on the top and bottom. When the flash of the
warhead concurred, half the plasma-drive engines were rendered useless. The
Gellimand fighter was not going to give up until Mercury IV was non-existent.

The Gellimand fighter cut back engine power ever so slightly. The rear of the
sub-light fighter was the only place it couldn't possibly have any
armor, and where electrostatic deflection would be minimumized with respect to
the rest of the fighter. There could only be one reason for the Gellimand
fighter lowering its power output; it was obviously saving generator power for
launching a proton ball. And since the battle computer had to be off for their
rapid escape, there would be no way Mercury IV could avoid an accurately placed
proton ball.

There was just one flaw in the brilliant plan of the Gellimand
fighter—the Sirians!!! Just as the Gellimand fighter had gained enough
power to commence its firing proceedures, a fleet of three sub-light fighters,
immersed in Sirian markings, shot through their respective hyper hole, and with
no one to stop them, commenced a brutal attack on some of the
Centaurians—one being the Gellimand fighter!! The offender immediately
began firing high-powered pulses from their several on-board gas lasers. The
Gellimand fighter immediately broke off its attack from Mercury IV, swerved its
proton cannon 180°, and fired one single ball of energy at the Sirians. It
was obvious that the Sirians never prided themselves on maneuverability, for
the little proton ball gashed at the side of the Sirian fighter, and made a big
artificial crater. But a simple wound like that would never stop a determined
and quick-tempered Sirian. The gas lasers on the Sirian fighters were the most
advanced ever devised: they not only consisted of the multiple-stage gas tubes,
but also used a special system of "frequency adjustment" so they could tune in
on the exact frequency of their target, and thus inflict the most damage.

The Sirian fighter let loose in a few gas lasers, but mostly in an attack made
of missles. Fortunately for the Centaurians, missles were solid matter, and so
could be intercepted easily. The Gellimand fighter quickly sent out a stream of
bullets designed to intercept the oncoming missles, most of which did their
job. However, no technology was perfect, as several of the missles did reach
their intended target, and tore great gashes of armor from its surface, but did
virtually no internal harm. However, these were just to use the supply of
Gellimand bullets; to throw the Centaurians off guard. Suddenly, the stream of
conventional missles ceased, which was followed by the appearance of two larger
missles. These missles were obviously designed for instant-death combat, for
they were propelled by a much faster engine than rockets—probably plasma
drive. Vainly the Gellimand fighter attempted to shoot them "down" with as few
bullets as remained.

Suddenly, in a blinding flash of blue-violet light, one of the missiles
exploded in mid-space. It seemed that some of the bullets had reached their
target, and vaporized it indirectly. But they still had to get the second
missle, which was then so close that with the small number of bullets
remaining, the chances of stopping it were almost zero.

Which turned out to be exactly what it was—zero. The missle had reached
the Gellimand fighter, and removed such a big gash that it was impossible for
it to be 'alive' still. With a few good blasts from the Sirians gas lasers, the
Gellimand fighter was reduced to three sections of hull—definitely
"dead".

By this time, Mercury IV had escaped back through the hyper hole to the Solar
system. When the engines had shut off, and deceleration had reduced to less
than one Earth gravity, the crew was released from its water tanks. And when
they got out, every one of them was cheering, and cheering loudly.
Everyone, except for one—the computer technical engineer. He was
scared—not of the fact that replacing half the plasma drive would cost a
lot, not of the fact that they barely escaped with their lives—but of the
fact that they had to chase the Centaurian super-psol fighter through
the hyper hole. If they had a good battle computer, then why didn't they stop
it within a matter of seconds?? There could be only one explanation—at
sub-light speeds, a CRAY-3 was much too slow. The battle computers of not only
Mercury IV, but the entire Mercury series had to be replaced with the speedier
CRAY-76 computers, which were 273 times quicker than CRAY-3s, or
about 9,444,733,300 trillion times as fast. And he knew that there was only one
person who had knowledge enough of the battle computer systems to replace each
of them—himself. The responsibility had to fall on his shoulders at one
time or another, but why a whole day into the war?

Before long, Mercury IV had reached its designated hangar in the Jupiter space
station, which was named Cape Jovial (appropriately). Now, two replacement jobs
had to be done—one for the computer, and one for the partially destroyed
plasma drive. The latter was done in the blink of an eye, but the former took a
little longer.

The technical engineer re-entered Mercury IV after doing Mercury I, II, III,
and V, saving his own fighter for last. The CRAY-76 he held in his hand was a
whopping 5 inches by 1½ inches by the standard ¼ inch high. How
could they ever fit such a massive computer chip into a fighter? he wondered.
A CRAY-3 was only some 2" X ½" X ¼", which was considerably
smaller, so not only would the Technical engineer have to replace the chip, but
the chip shunt (chip clip) was well. The CRAY-3 was the least expensive
computer chip for its speed, which was invented long ago in the late twentieth
century, in the mid-seventies. Its inventor was, of course, first developed by
Prof. Cray. Cray had never gotten as far as the CRAY-76, but when he died, he
left behind the foundation for building better and faster computers under his
name. However, when the CRAY-76 was developed, its inventors reached a dead
stop; a point where they could go no further, as the CRAY-76 was, and forever
will be, the fastest computer ever designable.

The CRAY-76 was bulky, true, but how much bulkier would it have been in
the days before base ten transistors and other semiconductors of the modern
Pentagon. Not only were base ten transistors much more useful because they
could operate on zero through nine instead of just zero to one, but they were
also much smaller and faster than the old binary ones. In the old days, one
cubic millimeter could hold no more than one thousand binary transistors.
Nowadays, that many decimal (base ten) transistors could fit in half that
space, especially since they were "grown" in the void of airless, gravityless
space.

Soon, the Technical computer engineer had reached the battle computer center.
He then proceeded to open the protective cover while bracing himself to the
ground in order to avoid spinning the opposite direction of his screwdriver in
zero-gravity. After it was carefully removed, and the screws carefully stowed
away, he popped out the CRAY-3, disconnected the shunt, reconnected the new
shunt, and put in the CRAY-76. This was by no means an arduous task! For within
one minute, the protective cover was replaced, and the technical computers
engineer could leave Cape Jovial to do other, more vital things.

Of all the systems, why did Human-Centauri have to get involved in the war? The
Human-Centaurians were peace loving people—they never wanted to get in a
war. Well, then, they just wouldn't go to war. They would use all their
fighters in defense; that was all. None would leave the star system; it was as
simple as that.

There was no Human-Centauri sun when it was first created; it had to be
produced by forming a big cloud of hydrogen, and then lighting it with an
atomic bomb. There were five artificially constructed planets orbiting around
the central sun. These were not your typical planets; at most their
orbits were one thousand miles apart, and even that was to be altered. The
planets weren't spheres like you'd expect them to be, but big plates, curved
exactly as the path of their orbit. The idea was that one day, all the planets
would be connected, followed by adding more curved material onto either end.
And finally, this would form a "planet" completely encircling their sun, a
"ring world". Larry Niven would have been proud of them. But not now, in a time
of war.

Soon, the unavoidable had happened. Two Barnardian fighters, the Nina and the
Pinta, and one Sirian fighter, the Santa Maria, had entered the Human-Centauri
system by their respective hyper holes. There was no choice for the
Human-Centaurians except to fight. Yukariah Heap sent out three of their
sub-light fighters (from the Mercurand series) with which to combat the Nina,
the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. Somewhere in Yukariah's mind that combination
of names rang a bell, but he couldn't decide where.

Nevertheless, Mercurand-two, Mercurand-one, and Mercurand-leader set out to
make that familiar combination of names not so familiar, and bring a quick,
temporary peace to Human-Centauri. The mercurand series was not so nearly
advanced as the newer hydrogen-and-other-cosmic-junk ramscoops, as it only
sucked in hydrogen, but it did have the advantage that its fighters were about
20 psol faster than the Mercury or Gellimand serieses. They were designed with
twin scoops on the front several kilometers across, and between them was strung
the works of the fighter, with the engines on the outside. The works included
some proton cannons, missle and shell launchers, the crew and computers, plus a
huge array of generators for additional power besides that produced by the
ramscoop engines.

Mercurand-one took the Nina, Mercurand-two took the Pinta, and Mercurand-leader
took the one with the biggest name, the Santa Maria. Mercurand-one began by
starting its generators to fire some proton balls. However, since generation
time is precious, the Nina began to attack Mercurand-one when it saw the
opportunity. It seemed the missles and bullets were primitive weapons to this
Barnardian fighter, but it still insisted on using material weapons. Yet these
weapons were not of solid matter, but of liquid saturated gummy
material. The Nina quickly ejected a big white mass of something white which
formed into sort of a streamlined glob.

The glob streaked toward Mercurand-one, and made an impact with a splat.
Suddenly, the surface of Mercurand-one began to be sizzled off; stripped of its
metal armor, and...it was SMOKING!! In space? There could be only one
explanation—the white glob contained an extremely potent acid! From the
fumes it was obviously nitric. This was a situation never before handled aboard
Mercurand-one, so the commander took the most obvious action.:

"Quickly—activate all the starboard ammonia jets!", he announced.

As soon as the crew carried out this order, great fountains of foam began to
shoot out from the blob of white stuff—the ammonia had neutralized the
nitric acid!! The commander had thought well.

As soon as the ammonia jets were shut off, Mercurand-one began to avenge its
wound by attacking the Nina once again. The generators were completely done,
and all that had to be done was the proton gun had to be fired. The helmsman
(named Torra Zorra) entered the coordinates into his terminal, and readied to
fire. Just as Torra was about to fire, an overwhelming urge came over him to
re-enter the coordinates exactly 5° to starboard of where the Nina was.

The weird urge immediately took control of his hands, and did exactly as they
were told—re-enter the coordinates. The posessed hands immediately
entered the command to fire the proton cannon, and the ball of energy raced
toward a place five degrees from nowhere. The commander had noticed this, and
rushed to his viewscreen. There he saw it: a big ball of energy, costing twenty
seconds of generation time, hurling on toward nothingness because the stupid
helmsman had entered the coordinates five degrees off! But was it going
to hit nothingness??

Suddenly, the big fighter Nina swerved as though it were programmed into her
memory—exactlyfivedegreesstarboard! As
suddenly as the commander's anger was created, it was replaced by astonishment.
How could Torra Zorra know that the Nina was going to swerve like that?? Well,
however he knew, the ball hit—not a direct hit, but a hit, nevertheless.
On the top of the Nina was a big, clean crater made by the impact and the
energy of the proton ball. Yes, the Nina was down—but not out.

The nina struck again with her acidic gum gun. This time, however, it was not
intended for its acidity, but for its gumminess; it was going to clog up one of
Mercurand-one's ramscoop intakes! The gun took careful aim, and launched its
ammo. This time, how could Mercurand-one survive? It was surely half-death.

Except for one thing. The gum was soft and jelly-like, so why not just shear it
in half? The commander dashed to his private console, typed in the command to
give him weapons control, and entered another string of commands which told the
strongest microwelding laser to shear the glob right down the middle.
Unfortunately—although it did exactly as instructed—the laser had
cut the glob vertically, rather than horizontally as the commander had
expected. But this was only a small problem, for all the commander had to do
was enter a simple command which told Mercurand-one to spin 90° so that it
was on its side. He typed in the command, and Mercurand-one spun in one-fourth
of a circle so quickly that most of the crew was thrown to the sides of the
fighter by the brief centrifugal force.

The two halves skimmed by the top and bottom of Mercurand-one, almost hitting,
but not quite. Now the commander could concern himself with other matters, like
his psychic helmsman. He walked over to him in the zero-gravity, and spoke.
"How come you never told me that you were a psychic?"

"Because I'm not a psychic, I don't even know what happened!"

"Oh, one of those things, eh? Well, if you get any more of those weird spasms,
don't hesitate to carry them out—we need all the help we can grab!"

Suddenly, the weird urge returned, this time instructing his hands to type in
the command to fire five gas laser pulses directly at the rear of the Nina.
The commander quickly came to look at the phenomena of the urge, but as
abruptly as it had started, it ceased. The five green-white pulses zoomed
toward their target at light speed (of course). The first three hit the armor
surrounding the plasma-drive, merely weakening it for the fourth, which
stripped the armor off completely. The fifth actually went into the engine, and
started a chain reaction. Four blasts to remove the armor, and one to remove
the Nina! The commander doubted that this was just psychic—he
could feel that it was a much stronger power; almost divine, but not quite.
Well, whatever it was, he had to notify the Mercurand-leader about this. But
first, why not look at the viewscreen and see what's happening to the Nina?

What was happening to the Nina was the little chain reaction had flourished
intio a full-scale atomic explosion, and was causing the Nina to actually break
apart. Within a minute, all that would be left was the top and bottom hull,
torn apart by the continuous blast.Now he could notify Mercurand-leader
in peace. He picked up his picturephone receiver, and punched "0". The operator
immediately came in, and connected him with Mercurand-leader's commander.

"Hey, Merky baybee! You'll never guess what just happened!"

"Your stuffed mutant bear finally came by spacemail!"

"Better than that—we just destroyed the Nina, and we were helped by some
weird force!"

"You too?"

"Whatayamean, 'too'??"

"The same thing just happened to me; I was in the crossfire of one of
their nuclear missles, and something just told me to cut off the tip with a gas
laser. At first I ignored it, for the tips were usually built much too solidly,
but I stopped ignoring it when it took control of my hands, and forced ne to
typed in the command!"

"That's odd. I wonder if this has happened to Mercurand-two,too."

"To two too. I like that."

"Nevermind that, I'm calling Mercurand-two!"

With that, he put down the receiver, and punched in "2". This time, no operator
was present, so he was connected up much more quickly.

"Merky two, you'll never guess what just happened to my helmsman and
Mercurand-leader's commander!"

"They were taken over by uncontrollable urges."

"How'd you know??"

"The same thing happened to my navigator. All-of-a-sudden, he commanded the
computer to make the fighter shoot downward, and he said he had nothing to do
with it. Then the weirdest part—the Pinta fired three white globs of acid
gum at us, justoverourheads! Weird, weird!"

The commander didn't bother to respond; instead, he just put down the phone.
Why had all these urges come over them; and more importantly, why a helmsman, a
navigator, and a commander named J. Doe?

Suddenly, Torra Zorra became posessed again. This time, however, it wasn't by
action; he was receiving a thought message. The message consisted of four
words: "Help...Universe...End...Epsilon Urandi".

The last word(s), Epsilon Urandi, was the name of a close-by star. The other
three words were completely undiscernable as to their meaning. Torra was just
about to tell the commander about this, when the same thing happened again,
only this time saying, "We are from Epsilon Urandi, the second planet out. And
we are not in material form..." The message faded out at that point.
Torra wasn't going to tell the commander about this until he was sure
what it meant.

Once more, the message came. "We controlled your hands and the hands of the
others. We needed to help you because there is something wrong with the
universe. We don't have to know it by experiments, we feel it by our psychic
power. Long ago, we left our material bodies, and literally became spirits. No,
not dead; we had machines that did this,which are long gone and long forgotten.
Anyway, we know there's something wrong with the universe, and we need your
help. Years ago, before we all became spirits, we developed the most extreme
break in the laws of physics: a "zero-drive", which allows a spaceship to move
at completely zero speed— no movement whatsoever. We hadn't
much use for it, so we buried it deep within the first planet surrounding E.
Urandi. Now, its existence may mean the existence of everything else in the
universe.

"Through the hyper holes of your creation, you must go at the speed of
infinity—you have no choice. But that's only because you aren'tgoingatspeedzero. If you used our zero-drive,
however, you'll be able to go slower than infinity but faster than
light. I believe you call this "Limbo". Anyway, when you're travelling between
light and infinity—in Limbo—you can control your speed, and
go a quadrillion, a quintillion, or even a sextillion times the speed of light.
But if you are going less than infinity, you'll have enough time while
travelling inside a "hyper hole" to use one of those immense "hyper blower
bombs" to blow a hole back into the known universe. Now, using the ideas
I have given you, find the zero-drive within E. Urandi-one, and even if you
have to wreck the planet to find it, go to the edge of the universe in the
general direction of the red giant Betlejuice. Goodbye...."

There was no way he was going to tell the commander about this before he
told the commander of Mercurand-leader. Out of all the billions of humans and
Centaurs (short for Centaurians), three were the chosen ones, and he was
among them!!! He was among the trilogy of Torra Zorra, navigator Ken
Tractor, and commander Jennifer Doe!!!

It wasn't long before Mercurand-one came in to the flat, curved, artificial
space station circling the Human-Centauri sun at the same speed and orbit as
the other five "planets" (only one-fifth the size). Torra Zorra got out of
Mercurand-one, and waited patiently until Mercurand-leader arrived, and its
commander left the fighter. At that time he asked, "Hey! Jenny! I just got a
psychic message from these guys called 'Epsilon Urandians'! How 'bout you??"

"Me too! And according to reports from Mercurand-two, the same thing happened
to Ken Tractor, their navagator."

Before another hour had passed, all three of the chosen ones had arrived at
space station central, and presented their problem to the big man, elected
leader Yukariah Heap. Yukariah was one of the most understanding and flexible
leaders elected by the "people", and would probably be in office for years to
come (a Human-Centauri year was about 250 days, the average between a solar
year from Earth and an Alpha-Centauri year on A. Centauri-III, named "Gorla").
Thus, he gave this problem much more serious consideration than would've
Holsteader or Krammer.

Within a few minutes, he arrived at a verdict. "Well, it seems that you're the
chosen ones, so you might as well do as asked. And remember; the fate of the
entire universe may be in your hands! Er...take Mercurand-leader, and bring a
hyper bomb with you."

The three quickly left space station central, and arrived at the foot of
Mercurand-leader less than half an hour later. Once aboard, the plasma drive
was instantly fired, and the three were off on a lonely quest; a shining
planet, known as (dramatic pause) E. Urandi-I. The three soon had the course
set in the CRAY-46 navigational computer, and were given a thirty-second delay
until the ramscoop was kicked in. In that time, they had to get into their wet
suits and enter their respective water tanks. Each made it in time, but Torra
Zorra made it with a margin of only a few seconds.

Six-and-a-half years later, the ramscoops ceased operation, replaced by the
feeble 2-psol power of the plasma drive. The three got out of their water
tanks, and resumed control of Mercurand-leader (now just called, "Mercurand").
They were indeed orbiting around Epsilon Urandi. As they circled in closer to
the central star, the first planet (with a rrreally incredibly original name,
Epsilon Uriandi-I!!) came into their view. It looked like a planet completely
dead, just like the other two. So that's why no one had discovered life
on Epsilon Urandi-I, or II or III—all the life forms were composted long
ago, and were now all spirits!!

They hadn't much time to worry about these types of things then— they
were too concerned with blowing that planet apart, and getting at its contents.
This was where Torra Zorra's helmsman's techniques were to be put to the test.
Already, Jennifer's had been used for command and quick thinking, and Ken's had
been used for laying the course to Epsilon Urandi-I. Torra sat down at a
console, and typed in a single command which would send out their only hyper
bomb to the planet, and break it apart (if you remember correctly, a hyper bomb
is just a weird and powerful antimatter bomb capable of rupturing an entire
planet).

The incredibly powerful electromagnetic launcher went in to use to launch the
massive hyperbomb. This was the first time the launcher had been used since the
testing of Mercurand, but it performed perfectly. The bomb was now a missle.

Although Mercurand was fast, the hyper missle was unbelievably slow. In fact,
it was at least seventeen minutes before...BOUM!!! No more bomb, no more
planet, and a new asteroid belt, all formed at the same instant. What was among
those debrises was soon to be revealed by the three, as the plasma drive of
Mercurand was quickly brought to full power.

It seemed that this planet, not unlike a few discovered in other star systems,
was composed entirely of rock—solid rock—with no
liquid mantle in its interior, or at least very little. But this was to be of
no importance, for more important things had to be discovered.

And they soon would be. Suddenly, as the helmsman (good ol' Torra) was into his
fifth minute of searching, he noticed an asteroid of an unusual
shape—conical. In addition to its shape, it was perfectly smoooth,
smoother than a cheap antimatter explosion could create. There was only one
thing it could be—and there was no doubt in anyone's mind as to what it
was; a zero-drive.

Now, only one problem haunted their brains (well, ok, 3 or 4—but only one
major one): how were they going to get that thing aboard? There was
conceivably only one way to do this—launch a one-person shuttle, then go
out in space in one of those old-fashioned,bulky spacesuits, manually attach
big tow cables, then connect those to the shuttle, get in, and tow the big
black cone back. The launching was simple, and went quickly using the same
electromagnetic launcher used to launch the hyper "bomb". Torra, being the
helmsman, was the one selected to do the dirty work.

Within ten minutes, Torra Zorra arrived at his destination. He donned his bulky
pressure suit, and entered the airlock. In a brief gush of air, he was outside,
carrying a tow cable. As he approached the cone from its closest point, he
noticed a most unusual spectacle: the cone was perfectly
smooth—not even a bump or scratch from age. When Torra came nearest to
it, and rubbed his hand along its surface, it felt slippery—in fact, it
felt frictionless. Those Epsilon Urandians must've been the first race
to achieve perfection in anything they constructed.

Nevertheless, he found a planned protrusion in the cone, and attached the cable
to it. With a gentle push, and the re-engaging of his suit thruster, Torra was
off back toward his shuttle, guided only by the tow cable.

The airlock door closed silently behind him, and with a "whoosh", the inner
airlock opened up, pouring the atmosphere of the shuttle into his presence. The
shuttle was a small one, and it only took three arm pulls on its stationary
handles to bring Torra to the control panel. There was only one problem
concerning Torra Zorra now: the shuttle was a small one, so small that it could
only be powered by chemical thrusters(rockets), so would it have enough fuel
to tow the zero drive back to Mercurand?

A quick glance at the fuel pressure gauge answered that immediately. It read
five hundred pounds; about enough to dock at a ten-foot range. It was obvious
that Jennifer had intended Mercurand to intercept the shuttle, and not the
other way around.

But why was he sent out to tow it back, if Mercurand was going to get it in the
first place? Torra glared out the window at Mercurand. It seemed to be aimed at
him in its normal fashion, travelling at its normal speed. But when looking at
an object head-on, no one can be sure of its speed. A glance at the control
panel's range radar (radar range?) revealed that Mercurand was going much
slower than one psol, and that it was slowing down dramatically. But why, so
far away?

When Torra Zorra looked back up at his viewscreen, his face grew white with
horror. Mercurand had twisted into such a position that its forward proton
cannon was aimed straight for Torra Zorra's shuttle, and a shining ball of
light-energy was zooming toward him at barely imaginable speed! Torra quickly
scanned his control panel, searching for something to avoid the proton ball
with. It was obvious that this shuttle wasn't designed for combat; it was
weaponless. Suddenly, his eyes came across a button labeled,"Bottom-side
thrust". His fist jammed down on the button, and the entire shuttle quaked. The
direction of acceleration was barely noticeable from the inside, but outside
almost a ton of thrust was being spewed out the bottom, and "pushing" the
shuttle upward, and out of the way of the oncoming proton ball.

The ball of light-energy just barely missed its intended target. Instead of
intercepting the shuttle, it was bound to intercept—the zero-drive! The
only hope for the entire universe was about to be vaporized! Torra glanced back
at the soon-to-be-non-existent zero-drive. There was something odd about
it—of course! It had twisted around, and the vertex of the cone was now
pointing at the oncoming proton ball. It seemed it was attracted to the source
of energy near it.

Impact suddenly occurred. However strange as it may seem, the cone
wasn't evaporated! Instead, the proton ball became a pinpoint of bright
blue light on the tip of the cone, which dissipated after a couple of seconds.
During that time, Torra could've sworn he'd felt the shuttle quiver and shake.
So that was the zero-drive in action! And now he knew it worked.

But what about that proton ball coming toward him in the first place? Ken had
absolutely no knowledge of Mercurand-leader's weapons system, and had very
little knowledge of weapons at all. Ah, but this was Jennifer's own fighter,
and all commanders know practically everything about the spaceship they
command. She had obviously found her way into the weapons room console, and
ordered it to launch a proton ball at Torra.

Most likely, she wanted to be the only one in control—the chosen
one, not amongst the chosen three. This was probably the case, but now
we will never know....

Aboard Mercurand, Ken Tractor (navigator) had discovered Jennifer Doe's
operation. Taking a stun pistol from his wall cabinet, he rushed to the weapons
control room console. There, sitting in the chair made for a helmsman, was
Jennifer, plotting another attacking plan.

Ken drew the pistol, and fired, not bothering to take careful aim.
(Un)fortunately, the spark of stunning hit a little too high, impacting with
Jennifer on the back of her neck, killing her instantly. But it was better her
than Ken and/or Torra.

Ken immediately radioed Torra, and instructed him to stay where he was, while
Ken went out to get him. Although Torra didn't have much choice, he stayed
right where he was, and acknowledged Ken. Since Ken had to use the plasma drive
it took only a matter of seconds before Mercurand-leader was close enough for
docking.

Since the shuttle was partially constructed of steel, all Ken had to do was
turn on the docking magnet, and let it pull the shuttle in to a perfect docking
position. Once both the shuttle and zero-drive were inside, the outer airlock
was closed, and pressure was equalized. Ken came out to check that Torra was
still in one piece, and Torra explained the situation with the zero drive: "You
see, what happened was that the proton ball was intercepted by the cone's tip,
which was pointingatit, when it wasn't before. Then, the
whole proton ball was absorbed into the works, and at that moment I could've
sworn I felt a shaking and a quivering sensation go through the entire ship. I
think that thing is actually attracted to high concentrations of energy, and
will work on any source. Even maybe...the PLASMA DRIVE! We could rig it up so
that its right behind a lead shield, and when its time for use, expose it to
the plasma drive. Even if the drive is off, it naturally creates enough energy
to un an entire GTE building!"

"Well, then," said Ken, "Why don't we test it right now? You rig it up in the
plasma drive near the most powerful energy tower, and...uh ...put a lead box
over it with a lead shutter, like those on Pentax 78,654,451 ZX-AE3's
(cameras), so it can open with a margin of only microseconds. That'll give it
more than enough power when it's OFF."

Torra did as instructed, and soon the shutter and zero-drive were in place and
working. Now it was ready for the acid test , and I don't mean litmus paper!
The test was to use it to stop Mercurand while it was using its ramscoop.

Torra send in a complicated string of commands to the computer: give them a
thirty-second delay, then fire the ramscoops, and after exactly five seconds,
open the shutter. The two dashed to their respective water tanks, this time
filled with a thick, gummy solution to resist the force of being thrown from
over 20 psol to zero in no time at all.

Mercurand suddenly fired up its plasma drive, and a few seconds later ignited
its ramscoops. Flying along at such a short distance and at such a small clip
couldn't possibly have any of the time altering effects of greater speeds.

Suddenly, the gigantic twin-ramscoop came to a dead stop. Torra Zorra and Ken
had expected to be thrown to the front of their water tanks at collossal G's,
but instead only vibrated, as did the rest of the ship (or so it seemed). After
ten seconds, the virbations ceased, and the computers once again waited for
input. The experiment was a success.

Torra sent the final sequence of commands to the computer, which would send
Mercurand back to the Human-Centauri system, and the orbital space station. For
the last time in 6½ yrs., the two dashed to their water tanks, and
awaited acceleration. It came just as was expected.

Six-and-a-half years in the future, the two returned with the news of the late
Jennifer Doe, and with their remarkable technological discovery. When Yukariah
Heap learned the news, he was unhesitant to contact the two neighboring systems
of Sirius and Barnard.

At first, Krammer and Ayatullah Breshnev were a little skeptical about the
crazy idea of "the fate of the universe", especially in this time of war, but
after several long hours of conversing were finally convinced, except Krammer
took a little longer than Ayatullah Breshnev.

However, before the Solar system or the Alpha-Centauri system could be
contacted and/or convinced, the Human-Centuarians had blown a hole with a hyper
bomb, pointing in the general direction of Betlejuice, as specified by Torra's
and Ken's visions. Soon after that, the two were launched out in the direction
of the hole, armed only with one hyper bomb. Instead of actually entering the
hole on full ramscoops, however, they were to speed up so that they were only a
few hundred kilometers away from the hyper hole, then switch to their plasma
drive. The reason for this was that if they entered the hole at a non-zero
speed, they would never come out—there was no second hole lined up with
the first!

The two did as instructed, and soon were less than 100 km from the hole. Ken
caused Mercurand to accelerate and decelerate with pinpoint accuracy, until it
was only a few millimeters from the hole. He then fired the plasma drive
and the zero-drive simoultaneously; the plasma drive would fire instantly, but
in the few milliseconds it took for the 0-drive shutter to open and the power
of the plasma drive absorbed into its system, the fighter will have edged into
the hole, and the 0-drive will have brought it into Limbo, or dimension
3½.

In a soundless concussion of milliseconds, amidst a great surge of rattling,
the two and their space ship had entered the fantastic universe of Limbo. The
dimension was so spectacular, that Torra had to inform Yukariah Heap of
what he saw just looking out the window:

"My god, this is great! I can see all the tints of the stars...red,
yellow, green, blue, and, of course, white. I recognise some of these galaxies,
but its difficult to get a fix on them because I'm travelling at about
fifty-six quintillion times the speed of light. This is obviously our universe,
and I'm sending a picture of it back to you. Unlike travelling at sub-light
speeds, there's no distortion of time in limbo at this acceleration, nor is
there any dopler effect. With all the star clusters and galaxies whizzing by,
this is better than a laser show!"

Within about two hours of randomly changing speed, the two had arrived very
near to the edge of the universe. Torra then came to the console, and sent in
to the computer the command to launch the hyper bomb, and typed in the command
to make it explode, but did not hit "RETURN". The bomb streaked out in front of
Mercurand, and at the last possible instant, Torra stabbed his finger down on
the large return key, and the bomb made its mark.

He hadn't much time to waste; he immediately typed in the command to, while he
was braced to something, seal off the 0-drive. In a time not measurable by
anything in the universe, the two and Mercurand were outside the hole,
travelling at almost 60 psol. Before the two could recover from this shock, the
ramscoops were shut off and put on "decelerate", and they were thrown to the
front of the fighter. Nevertheless, both survived the twenty-second braking
without any internal injuries.

Within a matter of minutes, the two were in the frontal control room of
Mercurand, which had the biggest view. The sights here were even more
phenomenal than those of Limbo.

"My god!", exlaimed Torra Zorra. "Look at that bright galaxy!!"

"That's no galaxy," replied Ken Tractor. "That can't be more than the size of a
red giant, according to these scanner readings."

"But...how???"

"Simple...that's a Quasar—a Quasi-stellar object. Now the Pentagon can be
certain of what those bright-white objects are...left-over burning coals from
the creation of the universe...glowing cinders from the Big Bang. How could
anything else be so bright?"

As Torra Zorra looked out in awe at the brightest singular thing in the
universe, Ken studied his long-range scanner. There were the usual readings of
nearly starless voids, such as the ever-present cosmic rays, the few existing
stars, the one Quasar and the one Hydrogen molecule per cubic decimeter
(litre—in a galaxy it's one molecule per 10 cu. cm); up until a point. At
that apparently infinite line (or ½-plane, if you prefer),all readings
ceased. This couldn't have been a black or hyper-hole, for it was much too
large, and it was moving away an an incredibly fast pace. There was only one
thing it could possibly be. "Torra," announced Ken, "Come look at this!"

Torra slowly came over to the radar screen, with his head facing the Quasar,
admiring its splendor still. But when he glanced down at the screen, his mind
instantly snapped out of that world. There was that half-plane, just sticking
out on that flat surface of a monitor. "What is that?", he inquired.

"There's only one possibility: that's the edge of the universe."

So, now it seems that all of the Pentagon's scientific theories about the
universe were either proven or disproven. However, the chosen ones were about
to discover just one more odd fact....

Torra once again returned to the viewing window to search for more unusual
things, as all good scientists do. There was the Quasar, and the starless void
at the end of the universe, but...what was that? It looked small, a good
deal bright, and extremely blue-shifted. "Ken— what's this thing?"

As he came to the window, he announced, "I don't know. What could that
be?"

When he looked at the radar screen, he saw nothing of the sort registering. It
had to be in the void beyond the universe's edge. With this fact in mind, Ken
knew exactly what it was.

"That's another Quasar," he announced, "Only beyond our universe, and coming
toward us instead of away."

"But all Quasars have to be contained in a universe, so that means—"

They both knew what it meant. It meant that there was a second universe out
there, converging on their own. And it seemed that another poignant theory was
proven: several universes exist at once, and if they should ever touch each
other, then the two will instantly, at the speed of infinity, zap back
to the form they had before their big bang.

The two had to get back with this information, for according to the speed of
the universes, it would only be a few H.-Centaurian days before they made
contact with each other. This was undoubtedly armageddon. Ken set the
course for the newly made hyper hole, then dashed with Torra to the water
tanks. In five real hours, the two were back at their space station.

Yukariah was as frightened as anyone in the Human-Centauri system could've
been. He immediately sent the word out to Krammer and Ayatullah Breshnev, who
were more willing to believe it than they were before. Finally, when
Alpha-Centauri and Sol were informed, all war-time efforts ceased. The chaos of
war was replaced with orderly hoping and prayer. Although it was argued that
more than the chosen two should go out and stop the universes, the idea was
quickly dismissed.

There was hardly any conceivable way to stop the universes from colliding,
until the Epsilon-Urandians gave the two a vision of two words: "Hyper...Bomb".
At that point, the idea was made instant-ly clear.

Thw two would take a hyper bomb to the edge of the universe, and use it to blow
a hole in the universe, and cause it to shrink instead of grow. Then everyone's
problems would be solved for at least several billion years. They had no time
to waste, as more than two Human-Centaurian days had already passed.

The two once again entered Mercurand-leader, but this time launching in a
different manor. Instead of jumping immediately into the water tanks once the
ramscoops, with their extreme acceleration, were started, they were going to
place a large wall behind the frontal control room, and when the ramscoops were
ignited, they would just be pinned horizontally to the wall, and when the
acceleration period was over, they could easily return to the control panel
within five seconds. This speed was essential, as the hyper bomb would have to
be fired with accuracy of sight not obtainable by computer, and then they
would have to get away extremely quickly.

After launching, Ken set the ramscoops and commanded the CRAY-44 to ignite
them, and instantly lept back for the wall. The acceleration was a little more
than either of them had expected, about five G's worth. Within a few seconds
ship time, Mercurand found the hyper hole, and was instantly thrown to the
edge of the universe.

By then, the acceleration had died down to a mere ¼ G, and Torra Zorra
was able to easily pull himself upto the weapons console. The outskirts of the
universe flashed by his eyes at an unconceivable speed, and yet he was going
nowhere near the speed of the universe. That little push of speed had to be
dished out by the electromagnetic launcher to the adjoining hyper missle. The
few days of waiting for armageddon had reduced itself to less than an hour, or
about fifty minutes. At the speed Mercurand was moving, those fifty minutes
normal time were reduced to less than fourty seconds ship time.

Now not only was Torra Zorra pulled up to his console, but so was Ken Tractor,
for after the universe was made to stop its growth process, it would fly back
on them, at much faster than Mercurand was capable. And if the universe closed
on them before they escaped through the hyper hole...it was not a concept worth
thinking about, being trapped between universes in that way. But first,
trillions of stars had to be saved.

The shot had to be timed perfectly, so that it could strike the universe within
the timed limit (which was now only thirty ship-time seconds) and in addition
give them enough time to escape. The explosion needed not be worried about, as
it was armed with a proximity fuse.

Torra Zorra glared intently at the edge of the universe for several seconds.
Suddenly, his fingers flew over the keyboard, a loud rumbling was heard through
out the ship, and the hyper missle zipped out of the front of Mercurand. At
that instant, Ken entered a single command into the keyboard, and Mercurand
spun 180 degrees.

Neither Ken nor Torra would be able to see the universal disruption in the full
and natural view of a window, but they would be able to "see" it via a
twenty-four inch video monitor, although they had already re-accelerated to
five G's. In the little video screen, the missle raced toward its intended
target, as was visualized. As it was about to go out of sight, the two were
distracted from the screen for a moment by a blinking red light on the warning
panel, which indicated complications imminently. It couldn't be further from
the truth, for now there were less than five seconds
remaining....four...three...two...one...

Suddenly, the whole ship started rocking and warping with a strangeness never
before thought possible. Was this armageddon? The two took a glance at the
video screen. There, as plain as a Quasar, was a big hole torn in the fabric of
the universe—moving toward them. The missle had done its most
awe-inspiring duty. The universe was safe for matter once more. The two cheered
with joy.

Their cheers were abruptly halted by a horrifying message from the computer
terminal...the ramscoops had flamed out! Ken quickly lept from the wall, and
sat before the console. Within a split-second, Torra had joined him.

Torra quickly ran a breakdown of the entire fighter. As he scanned the
computer-drawn sketches of Mercurand, he saw the problem, sticking out like a
sore elephant. It was centered in the cyclotron, used for shearing electrons
off the Hydrogen atoms of open space. It seemed that one of its P-239 isotope
racks had toppled over, and caused a dominoe effect on five other racks. He
thought about this for several precious seconds, and then came to a solution.

He passed his agile fingers over the control console, and suddenly the airlock
doors on the side of the cyclotron opposite the dominoe effect flew open. Torra
could feel the rumbling of the air rushing out of the airlocks, and flinging
out into space. Suddenly, a second, much stronger rumbling was felt, and Torra
knew what it was.

When Torra heard the "ClackackacKackack" of the five isotope racks falling back
into line, he entered the command for the airlock doors to close, and the
cyclotron to fill with air. At a nod from his head, Ken entered the command for
the ramscoops to fire.

Both of them were instantly torn from their seats, and plastered to the
protective wall. In the rear screen, the universal shell slowed its approach
tremendously. But the battle of technology versus universe was not over yet;
there was still a long distance to go before Mercurand came to its hyper hole.

Suddenly, a small green light illuminated on the navigational instrument panel,
and a small black point appeared at far range on the radar scanner. At last,
Mercurand had found its gateway, and was closing in quickly.

Torra Zorra thought a bit about the relief of being out of all this. As his
thoughts were searching through all that had happened, they finally came across
the 0-drive, which was still on-board. It was enough that they had one item
that broke all laws of physics, ie the hyper bomb, but that in accordance with
the 0-drive would be much too havocky.

To Ken's great astonishment, Torra suddenly pushed himself away from the
protective wall, constantly fighting the now double gravity. His feeble arms
pulled and clambered over any protrusion available; normally he would never
have made it. But this was a special case.

Against all odds, Torra had finally managed to pull himself into the seat of
his console. He put forth his arms, and commanded the computer first to detatch
the 0-drive from the plasma drive, and second to open the plasma-drive airlock.
Lastly, the command was sent to spin the 0-drive at over five hundred
revolutions per minute on its tip, and finally to release it in the opposite
direction of Mercurand.

The little conical zero-drive promptly disappeared from plain rear view, and on
long-range was seen disappearing through the hole in the universe.

Before Torra Zorra or Ken Tractor could be glad even for a few seconds,
something rocked Mercurand-leader. They had made it through the hyper hole,
back to the known section of universe they called their own. Now, only one
thought haunted their minds: what would they do 20 million years later when the
universe closed in on them???

Now that it was all over, a second meeting of the heads of the system leaders
was scheduled on L1011-II to discuss peace terms. But never again would
anything like a SALTY treaty be made. Nevertheless, all the representatives
from all the systems made it there in time.

"Now then," announced Yukariah Heap, "I'm sure you all know what has happened
in the recent past. That war we had was a foolish thing, and we shouldn't have
to rely on petty things like the end of the universe to bring us out. Now, for
some peaceful terms..."

As he was thumbing through his brief case, a short-of-height Alpha-Centaurian
opened the meeting door, and trudged into the room. "What are you doing here,"
demanded Yukariah Heap, "Interrupting this important peaceful meeting?!?"

The little intruder pulled his hand from behind his back, and revealed a small
box with a nozzle-like protrusion sticking out of one end. "As I was examining
the remnants of Epsilon Urandi-I," he said, "I came across this little box. So
far, however, I haven't been able to figure out what it does...."

The five representatives immediately crowded around the strange Centaurian with
the even stranger-looking and "sounding" box. Why was it in the remains of
E.Urandi-I, and more importantly, what was it??

Although the midget Centaurian tried to keep it away from the curious hands of
everyone in the room, someone eventually got hold of it, and began searching
for anything heat- or pressure-sentitive.

At first, none could find anything worth interest, but as it was being passed
from person to person, Yukariah Heap finally found a small hatch on what was
apparently the top of the device. When he opened it, it revealed a large red
disc, almost entirely consuming the area uncovered by the hatch. Finally,
pointing the nozzle in some awkward direction that he didn't take time to
choose, Yukariah passed his right index finger over the disc.

Suddenly, Holsteader (also one of the device-grabbers) yelled for a
split-second, tightened up, and fell forward; dead. The nozzle had accidentally
been pointing at Holsteader!

As the meeting attendants examined the device and Holsteader's dead body, a
sudden, powerful, psychic voice came into all their heads from the spirit
world. It was that of Holsteader—so that was what that device was,
because all his voice said was: